Fair Point: Rock n roll mothering gets a stoning

Jo Davison

What would any sane, caring parent do if they thought their teenagers were taking drugs?

Panic. Feel the fear. Then sit down with them and tell them of the risks they’re taking with their lives, their health and their sanity. Insist, and then beg, that they stop.

If that doesn’t work, you’d ground them. Lock them in their rooms, confiscate their money and call the professionals for help.

And by professionals, I don’t mean the drug dealers former Rolling Stone Ronnie’s ex-wife Jo Wood summoned when she discovered her kids were dabbling.

Her reasoning? It was safer, she reveals in her new autobiography, Hey Jo. It meant she knew where the gear had come from. And when the kids took drugs at home rather than at some party, she could keep check on them (being experienced and all that).

Shocking stuff. But when she was interviewed on the Alan Titchmarsh Show, it was Jo looking stunned. He pointed out the drugs - and thereby her - could have killed the kids.

Seemed she hadn’t thought of that, or the fact that she could also have given them psychosis and an addiction.

Is it proof that Jo was a bad mother, though? No.

She honestly thought she was taking control of her kids’ safety. The fact that it didn’t dawn what they also needed was for mum to take a moral stance and lay down some laws just shows how skewed the world of rock and roll and fame is - and how drug use twists your view of what is and isn’t okay.